HE was the ultimate neighbour from hell – a man so despised that locals bought wine to toast his eviction after years of terror.
Paul Coombes was branded “a menace to society” for his drunken behaviour, drug dealing, all-night partying and naked dashes around Foresters Tower, in Wood Farm, Oxford.
The former neighbour from hell, pictured with son Tommy, was evicted from his home and received an Asbo[/caption]
He led a gang of teenagers who verbally abused passersby and was “so terrifying” that neighbours were scared to walk around in case they bumped into him.
In 2005, he was evicted and slapped with an Antisocial Behaviour Order (Asbo) that prohibited him from returning to the area, but he was jailed just one day later for breaching the order.
The father-of-four fled to Brighton, where he spent nearly three years sleeping under the pier battling drug and alcohol addiction.
He nearly died after dropping to eight stone but in an inspirational twist, the 58-year-old has turned his life around and now mentors rough sleepers, addicts and ex-cons.
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Paul told The Sun: “I was one of the most hated people in Oxford because of my drug dealing, my behaviour and my addiction.
“I literally ran wild and was a nightmare neighbour, I was a pain in the backside for everyone in the community
“My face was all over the papers in Oxford and residents were toasting my imprisonment because of my behaviour.
“I was a very angry man back then and hardened heart because I was a child of the care system, I had no care or love for anyone
“The coin has been flipped now, I give everything of myself to everyone and will do anything to stop anyone from having a life like mine.”
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Paul says his problems began at an early age – at 11 years old he started running away from home “because it was safer on the streets”.
By 14, he signed himself into care after sleeping in graveyards, dumps and in shop doorways.
“Once, I remember I took all the doormats from an old people’s block, piled them up around a toilet and slept there,” he said.
“I was in and out of detention centres because I was sleeping rough and I was underage. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Whenever police officers found me, they would take me to the police station, feed me fish and chips and put me in a holding cell.
“They would call my mum to say they had found me and take me home until one occasion when she said she didn’t want me.”
Paul started using drugs and it set in motion a dangerous cycle of behaviour that led to him receiving an Asbo in 2005.
It followed the closure of a rehabilitation centre, where he had been clean for 18 months, and being moved to the Wood Farm estate.
‘Ring leader of terror teen gang’
Paul said: “The only place they could find for us was a towerblock where up to 20 drug dealers lived. We were set up to fail.”
There Paul became “the ring leader” of a group of teenagers and other men, who verbally abused residents and engaged in reckless behaviour.
Locals claimed Paul would drunkenly shout at passersby and held parties with loud music until the early hours.
The self-professed “neighbour from hell” spent five years tormenting those around him.
“He’s a menace to society… he was very frightening,” one neighbour told the Oxford Mail in 2005.
“I didn’t even want to go to the rubbish chute, you never knew where him and his gang would pop up next.”
Just one day after Paul received an Asbo, which banned him from entering the estate, he was arrested for trying to return to his old home.
We will be bringing out the wine tonight. It’s the best thing that could have happened!
Local resident's thoughts on Paul being jailed
His lawyer claimed the 40-year-old was trying to retrieve a sleeping bag after being turned away from a night shelter because they were full.
Paul was sentenced to 28 days in jail, which then councillor Claire Kent hoped would “send out a message to the youth that looked up to him as their leader”.
“We won’t put up with antisocial behaviour,” she said. “It’s a shame he won’t be in for longer.
His Asbo was also extended to the whole of England and Wales, which prohibited him from “behaving in a manner that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person.”
At the time, Paul said “my whole life has gone” but sympathy was in short supply after countless warnings over his actions.
One resident said: “We will be bringing out the wine tonight. It’s the best thing that could have happened.”
‘I nearly died under Brighton Pier’
Paul enrolled on to a work programme that helped him to turn his life around[/caption]
After Paul was released from jail, he realised he “had no idea where to go” and with just £92 in his pocket hopped on the first train from Platform 2.
He said: “When I got to Brighton, I visited every pub on the road leading down to the beach.
“I dug a hole in the pebbles, dragged them around me and slept there for the night.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to wake up but that didn’t seem to matter.”
Days later, in a disused section of the beach, Paul found an dilapidated and abandoned caravan under the Brighton Pier.
“It was covered in dead pigeons, which I had to clean out, and put cardboard everywhere,” he recalled.
“I sneaked in there every night. It was my home for nearly three years.”
Paul was discovered by a faith-based outreach programme and started his first of many attempts to turn his life around.
In 2012, his recovery was rocked after being reunited with mum Megan, who was dying from pancreatic cancer and had just weeks to live.
“I had so many questions for her, like who my father was and why she gave up on me but when I saw her I couldn’t,” Paul said.
“She was a 72-year-old skeleton, orange from the chemo and when I sat beside her, she lay her head on my chest. It was like holding a child.”
When Megan died, Paul went off the rails once more.
Now I help former addicts
Paul with wife of nearly three years Debbie Coombes, who he met through volunteering[/caption]
Eventually, he received help from a Christian group that raised money to send him to Clouds House rehab – famed for treating Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse and others.
Later, he moved to Boscombe, in Dorset, where he’s helped countless rough sleepers, addicts or former criminals to turn their lives around too.
“Throughout my drug addiction, all I wanted was for someone to listen to me, to understand me, to love me and to believe in me,” Paul explained.
“You feel so hopeless when you’re living on the streets, people look at you like you are nothing and a nobody.
“But we have so many talented men and women on our streets, they’ve all got skills that could be used. We just need to be patient with them.”
Paul, who got married nearly three years ago, says “the pain” of his life helps him to stand up for others who are often looked down upon by society.
He added: “I’m quite thankful for my past, it’s made me the man I am today, and has helped me to see the beauty in these young and hurt men, women and children on our streets.
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“What we need to remember is that every homeless person is just like a hurt kid, something will have happened in their lives that turned them to addiction.
“If you can deal with the hurt child, you’ll deal with the hurt man or woman. It’s easy. It could take days or weeks but if you’re patient, it will work.”
Paul credits religion and faith-groups with saving his life[/caption]
